OC has been around a long time. Many times I thought about doing an April Fools theme, but the date would always slip past me with other tasks taking priority.

As I am "back" working on all types of tasks with the site, and Online Console gaming, I managed to pull off OC's first April Fools. I think it was a great success as I got a lot of texts, messages in chat rooms, and forums where it went from instant surprise, jubilation, to "wait a second...", eventually ending in "AHH DAMNIT!! Its April Fools."

In the west (US/Europe) the game everyone wants back online the most is Unreal Tournament. It has been like this since the day it was shut down. With everything that has been going on with Dreamcast Online, it just felt like the right time to troll the community in such a way with UT.

Here are a list of elements on the site that changed for April Fools:

The main site header had Q3 chars swapped out for UT characters

Entries in the game tracker were added implying matches were being played on UT

A Unreal Tournament forum was added to the site, complete with header and index icon

A vague thread was made talking about a "Beta" being live

A discussion thread was created, with a doctored screenshot to reflect real online play was taking place

My avatar was changed, to that of Brock, however with a smirky smile (compare with original)

To give some indication that silliness was afoot, I changed my username to "loyd"nikon

I will be leaving this up through Wednesday so people can still see this content.

Setting up fake infra would have been more effort than I would be willing to exert. I was trying to bang this out in one evening. The screenshot above isn't even from the Dreamcast version of the game. Its the PS2 version, because its the only high resolution image I had available to insert matching text. Otherwise I would have to break out a capture card and rig up some equipment just to get a more modern screenshot. Every screenshot I have for the Dreamcast is highly compressed and scaled down, which would have been hard to pass off.

It was the little details that got me. I first saw it, and knew nope its April fools. Then I noticed all the little details on the site, mainly when I saw the Game tracker I reversed my thinking and started checking the other DC sites. So you did get me in the end.

A bit off topic from April fools,

I would really love for this game to come back online. Quake 3 was my first experience with online gaming via the Dreamcast, but once I started playing UT I was hooked. From a community standpoint, this game being online again would be wonderful due to its higher player count. Always sucks joining an online game night and the rooms are full in other 4 player games.

Can't remember off the top of my head, but Outtrigger was 6 players wasn't it?

:edit:
dumb question. Just checked the online game list here. Yes it was 6.

UT is a game that comes from the golden age of PC gaming. It would be great for it to be back online, because then OC would be providing services for: UT99, Quake 3, and TribesAA over on PS2 which is a port of Tribes 2. I still consider these to be "the big 3" in terms of classic frag based FPS's when they were at their peak.

While it would be neato to play this game again on the Dreamcast, I try to remind myself that the PC version is available and has been this entire time with flawless framerates, mod support, the ability to run servers, and a decent playerbase online. I have it installed on nearly every PC I own, and get online matches going here and there. I respect the DC version for what it is, but its not like nobody can play the game "UT" online at all, like Outtrigger for instance.

I think the allure for wanting the DC version back online comes from the fact that UT has a lot of meat to it. Lots of maps, higher player count capability, BBA support, etc.

Though, I do wonder how many of the players who want UT back online so bad, actually play the PC version of UT online. Not that I am calling you out Nico0020 or anything, we all have our gaps in our playing time. I still have not played Skies of Arcadia or Grandia II because I spend too much time playing Border Down and Jet Grind Radio

Though, I do wonder how many of the players who want UT back online so bad, actually play the PC version of UT online. Not that I am calling you out Nico0020 or anything, we all have our gaps in our playing time. I still have not played Skies of Arcadia or Grandia II because I spend too much time playing Border Down and Jet Grind Radio Wink

Oh no, you are spot on this. Hell my copy of UT is still boxed away in America with the majority of my DC games.
I even moused over it in my Steam list last night considering to install UT again as its been a few years, and then opted to see how the newest Alpha or UT runs on my computer.

Given the choice of UT or Outtrigger, Outtrigger is more important in being restored for me. The game is not playable online in any fashion currently, and was never released on anything else for public purchase. Especially as I have fond memories of playing with OC members for a weekly meetup, I'd be more excited about this - as would my friends from back in the day.

Nevertheless, I'd still be quite excited to be able to play UT on Dreamcast again.

EDIT: Hey where can I get a hold of the dc ut server ini file? I'd like to take a crack at it.

*scratches head* dc ut server ini file? No such thing exists. There is no DC UT server in existance. Maybe it only appears on 4/1 on some random corner of the net

Nico0020 wrote:

...
Given the choice of UT or Outtrigger, Outtrigger is more important in being restored for me. The game is not playable online in any fashion currently, and was never released on anything else for public purchase. Especially as I have fond memories of playing with OC members for a weekly meetup, I'd be more excited about this - as would my friends from back in the day.
...

Yea this is how I met Grubensau. I signed online and he was there playing Outtrigger on a Saturday night.

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I just want to thank everyone for engaging in this discussion. Who knows, maybe we do an OC Community Play for UT next Though I need to dive back into the Sega GT one and finish that up before we do the UT one.

I am preserving this post for archival purposes, and will move it to the General Online board.

Last edited by lordnikon on Sun Apr 08, 2018 9:02 pm; edited 1 time in total